In Robert Lupton’s follow-up to his popular Toxic Charity, the author weighs the future of effective efforts to reduce poverty. Echoing themes of his previous work and drawing from a wide and sometimes wonderful collection of stories and experience, Lupton insists that church handouts do little for those who are poor and, in fact, can do harm.

Universities regularly teach ethics across their curriculum and in graduate courses at professional schools, but as James Keenan writes, the university itself does not engage seriously with ethics when pursuing its goals and mission. Simply put, Keenan asks that the university practice what it teaches.

It’s hard to do Ryan Adams when you want Taylor Swift.

You can’t help but wonder why. What is alt-rock god Ryan Adams doing covering Taylor Swift’s zeitgeist of an album, 1989? Is it a joke? Is the rocker taking the piss out of Swift? Is it, like Father John Misty’s Swift covers, a critical jibe? Or is this real? Does Ryan Adams, a musician with serious music cred, actually admire the album?

Turns out he does. Ryan Adams’ cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989 is sincere. It’s an authentic homage to what many agree is already a timeless album. Whether Adams’ take is any good or not is an entirely different question.

“Faith is a gift,” writes Dominican Father Gustavo Gutiérrez. “To receive this gift means putting oneself behind Jesus as he walks, putting his teachings into practice and proclaiming the reign of God. The act of faith stands at the beginning of all theology.”

Meghan J. Clark is an assistant professor of theology at St. John’s University in New York. She is author of The Vision of Catholic Social Thought: The Virtue of Solidarity and the Praxis of Human Rights (Fortress).

The Soul of a Pilgrim
By Christine Valters Paintner (Sorin Books, 2015)

Surf
Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment (Self-released, 2015)

Much of the buzz about Surf, the indie debut from musical collective The Social Experiment, is due to the band’s most famous member: Chance the Rapper. The 22-year-old Chicago wunderkind’s self-released 2013 mixtape, Acid Rap, marked him as a poster child for eccentric, left-field rappers who have built followings largely via the internet and word of mouth.